


Practical

by sneakronicity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 14:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneakronicity/pseuds/sneakronicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is a practical woman, but practicality isn't everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practical

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just a short little one-shot inspired by pictures of Scarlett Johansson from the set of CA:TWS where she is wearing a necklace that appears to be a tiny arrow on a chain. I needed this to have meaning (and I really hope it's part of her costume) so here, have a tiny ficlet.

Natasha was a practical woman, especially when it came to her job.  Sure, she curled her hair and wore make-up but even those things were strategic as they tended to give her a tactical edge over the men who saw a beautiful woman first, and the back of their eyelids next.  She was not to be underestimated, but playing up her looks made them do just that.    
  
She was a practical woman, though.  She didn’t weigh herself down with heavy weapons any more than she bothered with heavy jewellery, or any jewellery for that matter.  Bracelets got in the way of her weaponry, earrings could be easily torn out; they were just useless baubles, frivolous things that served no purpose, and something she had never really bothered with.  
  
Not until six month ago.    
  
Loki’s attack on earth had changed many things, and Natasha would be lying if she claimed she had been unaffected.  It had been obvious from the start, from the moment Coulson said those three heart stopping words, that it had become very personal to her, and even when the war was won she could not forget everything she had been through those few days, everything she had felt.  More than that, she didn’t _want_ to forget.  
  
She and Clint had been dancing around each other for years.  Sometimes it had been slow and unsure, other times fast and frantic; they spun apart, they drew together; the music changed, the tempo changed, but always they danced.  There was no room for talking when dancing, the music was too loud, it drowned out everything but breaths and touches and those complicated steps.  They looked at feet and hands and lips but never eyes, never truth.  It was the dance that made their hearts beat faster, nothing more.  Nothing.  
  
Then Clint was taken and the music stopped.  
  
They tried to start again afterwards, tried to fall back into those same routines, but the record was scratched, it skipped, and they couldn’t find the rhythm.  It took them a few weeks to realise that they needed something new, something different; a few weeks to listen to the silence and realise their hearts still beat just as quick even when they didn’t dance.    
  
Five weeks later he admitted he loved her.  
  
Three more after that she said it back.  
  
Sitting in the passenger side of one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s carbon copy vehicles, Natasha looked unseeingly out the window, her fingers playing with the necklace around her neck.  Clint was off on his first solo mission since New Mexico and before he had left he had given it to her, a simple silver arrow on a thin chain.  He’d had a whole speech ready about how he knew she didn’t like jewellery and how she didn’t have to wear it and many other things to excuse it that he never actually got to say because she had cut him off with a kiss.  She had got him to fasten it around her neck, and claimed it would stay there until he came back, and that meant that he better damn well return to her because she hated wearing jewellery.    
  
The last thing he had done before he left was place a kiss over the spot where it rested on her skin.    
  
Rubbing her fingers over the tiny silver arrow she tried to convince herself she could still feel his lips burning on her skin, tried to imagine them, and it took her a moment to realise someone was saying her name.  
  
“Yes?” she said automatically, turning her head toward the driver of the vehicle.  
  
“Natasha, are you alright?” Steve asked with concern.  Only then did she also notice that they had stopped moving.    
  
“I’m fine.  Are we ready?” she replied, suddenly all business and leaving no room for further questions.  When Steve nodded she zipped her catsuit up to the top, concealing and safeguarding the thing that meant more to her than she had ever let any other silly trinket.  “Let’s go.”  
  
Natasha was a practical woman, but practicality, more often than not, lost out to matters of the heart. 


End file.
